School shooting survivors call for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to resign over old posts where she suggested the Parkland and Sandy Hook attacks were faked
- Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2018 agreed with a Facebook post claiming that school shootings were faked.
- The GOP Rep. has voice support for conspiracy theories before, including QAnon.
- Survivors of school shootings called for Greene to quit after the posts were unearthed this week.
Survivors of high school shootings called for Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Georgia to resign over old social media activity where she suggested that massacres like those at Sandy Hook and Parkland were faked.
The survivors spoke out this week after posts from 2018 were unearthed by the monitoring group Media Matters.
Greene in 2018 was writing response to a person on Facebook who claimed that "none of the school shootings were real or done by the ones who were supposedly arrested for them."
The posts mentioned attacks including the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The post went on to claim that Sandy Hook, where 20 kids and six adults died, was a "STAGGED SHOOTING," an apparent typo for "staged."
Greene liked the post, and another referencing a conspiracy theory that the Georgia Guidestones, a granite monument in Elberton, Georgia, contain coded messages about a "New World Order" plot by elites to control the world.
In response, Greene said: "That is all true. By the way, I've seen the Georgia guide stones."
(This video by Atlanta news channel 11Alive shows the guidestones and interviews local people about them:)
In a statement Thursday a coalition of grassroots groups that campaign for tighter gun control laws called on Greene to resign. The organizations involve include Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, and Students Demand Action.
Sari Kaufman, a survivor of the Parkland shootings who campaigns with the groups, said: "Rep. Greene continues to lower the already-subterranean bar she's set for herself, and further embarrass our entire government."
"She should step down and take her radical extremism, conspiracy theories, and hate-fueled lies far, far away."
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter, Jaime, was killed in the Parkland shooting, challenged Greene over the comments on Twitter.
"It appears you think or at one time thought the school shooting in Florida was a false flag. I know you have met Parkland parents. This is my daughter Jaime, she was killed that day. Do you still believe this? Why would you say this?" he wrote alongside a picture of his daughter.
Jaime Guttenberg was one of the 17 people killed in the Par land shooting on February 14, 2018. She was 14.
"Marjorie Green should resign," tweeted David Hogg, another Parkland survivor and gun safety campaigner. "If you spread conspiracies about mass shootings there should be no place for you in congress."
Insider has attempted to reach Greene for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Posting on Twitter in response to the Media Matters report, Greene wrote: "Communists bloggers like @mmfa run the same playbook of lies and smears on people they feel threatened by.
"Produce fake news, spread it all around, then tag all fake news stories about their victim in all future stories. Guess what? Nobody cares about your BS."
Greene has a track record with conspiracy theories, including expressing support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, though in August 2020 she said she no longer supported it.
Before she took office in November it emerged she had also expressed support for the conspiracy theory the 9/11 terror attacks were fake.
She is a hardline defender of gun rights, and in September Facebook removed a picture she posted of herself posing with a firearm alongside pictures of the Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.
The congresswomen are hate figures of the US far right.
Greene has been embraced by the congressional GOP since her election, but is coming under renewed pressure on the party to distance itself from far-right conspiracy theorists in the wake of the Capitol riots.
The Sandy Hook shootings and the Parkland shootings led to renewed calls for restrictions on who can access firearms, with both mass killings committed by individuals with a history of mental health issues who were nonetheless able to access an array of powerful firearms.
In response, conspiracy theorist have spread baseless claims that the killings were staged in order to enact gun control.
Alex Jones, of conspiracy theory site Infowars, was ordered to pay $100,000 in court costs in December 2019 and damages after being sued by parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook attack.
They said they had been harassed and even forced into hiding because of conspiracy theories Jones was instrumental in spreading about the killing.